She's Not a Ghost
by vikatenista
Summary: "…I said a lot of things, you know, just trying to keep you with me — but right before the paramedics got to you…I told you I loved you." Alex and Olivia have a moment. What I like to call...a deleted scene from Ghost, S6E16. AO.


It was the night before the biggest case of her life — and Alex Cabot wasn't used to getting her ass kicked before she had to go to court.

Of course, there were a lot of things going on right now that Alex Cabot wasn't used to.

After surviving an assassination attempt the previous year as a result of her work on a case against the Colombian drug cartel, Alex was stashed away in Witness Protection. She wasn't Alex — a confident, brilliant attorney in New York — anymore, but Emily — an insurance saleswoman in Wisconsin.

Just as she had finally settled in to life as Emily in the Madison suburbs, however, she had to go back to being Alex.

There was a break in her attempted murder case — her friends at SVU had caught the man contracted to kill her — an ex-IRA operative by the name of Liam Connors, nicknamed "The Ghost," because nobody could see him coming and nobody was alive to see him leave — after he had four more bodies to his name.

She was set to testify alongside a brave little Colombian boy named Antonio in the morning, and if all went according to plan, it could just be the first step to getting her life back.

Tonight, though, nothing was going according to plan: the blonde attorney was on a six-hand losing streak against Elliot Stabler, her former colleague, assigned with protecting her since earlier in the afternoon.

"Who's your daddy?" Elliot gloated as he won yet another hand.

Alex groaned. "Next game, your ass is mine," she said, tersely.

Elliot could tell Alex was stewing, deep in thought — and not just because he was cleaning her out in gin rummy.

"You're gonna do great tomorrow," he said, breaking the brief silence.

"When I was a prosecutor, I never went to court without a plan," she replied.

"You've never been the victim," he interjected.

Alex sighed, a flash of anger in her voice.

" ** _I_** should be trying the bastard who shot that little boy."

"You're gonna be back."

The two were interrupted by a knock at the door, to which Elliot drew his gun — just in case.

 _"Hey, it's Liv. Open up,"_ came the voice from the other side of the door. Elliot let her in as she volunteered to take the night shift of accompanying Alex.

"I'll be back 8:00 sharp tomorrow morning to bring you to court," Elliot said. "Goodnight."

Olivia shut the door behind her partner, and made her way to the sitting area. Alex rose from her seat and strolled towards the apartment window.

The place that the brass gave SVU to house Alex in wasn't all that bad, Olivia thought as she got her first chance to take it all in. It was a serious risk to them all to keep her at one of their apartments, so 1PP sprung for the cost of renting the place due to the high-profile nature of the case.

"He beat you again?" Olivia asked, looking at the playing cards strewn on the living room table.

"Like a rug."

"You wanna keep playing?"

"No," Alex sighed again as she strolled in the direction of the balcony. "I wish these windows opened — I wanna smell the city."

"You mean the rotting garbage and the diesel exhaust?" Olivia smirked.

"Wisconsin is so quiet at night," Alex mused. "Sometimes when I get homesick, I hum the Mister Softee song."

Olivia chuckled softly.

"You making any friends?"

"There's a claims adjuster at the insurance agency where I work….and we've been seeing each other."

Internally, Olivia flinched — as if Alex had just backhanded her across the face with her words. What she and Alex had was never official — hell, it never even had a name — and while she certainly wasn't expecting the woman to be celibate while she was creating an entirely new life for herself, a part of her hoped that the left side of her bed was empty and cold more often than not.

…Like hers was.

Across the couch, Alex hadn't sensed Olivia's mood shift. For a while, she'd been good at that — reading the detective who gave away so little and rarely showed her cards — but now…

She was out of practice.

"He's a good man," she continued, unbothered. "He thinks I'm from Tulsa. When we're in bed together at night, he whispers my name."

" _Emily_."

Olivia looked away, refusing to meet her gaze.

After a pause, she said, "It's hard to be someone that you're not."

Her words hung in the air, heavily, and it clicked for Alex all at once.

"Olivia, I—I'm—oh…"

Cutting her off, Olivia cupped Alex's cheek with her hand, gently tilting her chin upwards so that the blonde met her gaze. She pulled Alex close, leaned in and kissed her, savoring every inch of her, her scent — strawberries, always — and her touch.

Alex, caught off guard for a swift moment, soon allowed herself to get lost in her — the brown eyes that could be soft with empathy one minute and ablaze with passion the next; her soft touch, despite her lightly-calloused, overworked hands — just as she did all those times before.

"There are a lot of things I forgot about this city," Alex said, smiling softly as she pulled away and her cheeks flushed. " _That_ was not one of them."

The blonde reached towards Olivia, and took her hands in hers.

"I miss you. I miss this. I miss…us," Olivia said.

"…I miss you too," Alex said. "You know, when I — when I…"

She trailed off, swallowing hard.

"…When I woke up in the hospital the morning after the shooting, I honestly thought I'd died. The room was so bare, sparse and quiet — and I couldn't hear the beeping of the machines over my splitting headache and the ringing in my ears. The first moment I realized I was alive was when Hammond appeared moments later at my bedside, telling me that I was, in fact, 'dead.' He just kept talking, telling me I was going to enter the Program, that there were marshals outside my door, and the minute the doctors could scrounge me up a doggie bag of Oxycodone, we were getting out of there. I kind of just laid there, silent, staring at him, and his words went in and out."

Olivia just sat quietly and listened, stroking the back of Alex's knuckles with her thumbs. Nobody had pressed the attorney on what happened in the time between her last tour of duty with the Special Victims Unit and her return to the Big Apple for this case. The squad figured she would open up, when or if she was ready, and they would be there to listen when that time came.

That time, it seemed, was now.

"When he was finally done talking, I snapped out of it. Do you want to know what the first thing I said was?"

"What?"

"…Olivia. I want to see Olivia," Alex said softly. "…And then I asked if they could replace my IV with Cabernet Sauvignon."

Olivia chuckled.

"…I don't remember a lot about when I was shot, you know," Alex continued. "But I remember you. Your voice. The whole time I was laying there on the pavement. I heard it — and then…the sirens. I couldn't let them take me away before I saw you — I couldn't bear to think about you not knowing."

"Do you know what I told you that night?" Olivia asked.

Alex's brow furrowed. "I…don't really remember. I just remember the sound."

Olivia looked deeply into Alex's eyes, and took a deep breath.

"…I said a lot of things, you know, just trying to keep you with me — but right before the paramedics got to you…I told you I loved you."

Olivia exhaled, searching for a reaction in Alex's face.

Instead of words, Alex leaned forward to gently peck Olivia on the lips. She rose from her spot opposite Olivia and settled in on the couch next to her, swiftly moving towards her in one motion.

The blonde mounted herself over Olivia, pinning her body to the couch and straddling her, resting her knees on the outside of her hips. Olivia wrapped her arms around Alex's neck, pulling her close as they kissed, longer and deeper than before.

Alex made her way down from Olivia's lips to her neck, peppering a trail of kisses down to her collarbone. Olivia flinched under her lover's touch, as she felt her body begin to writhe with longing after the past year and a half. The blonde unbuttoned Olivia's flannel shirt, never breaking stride, and kissed her olive skin down towards where her bra met her breasts. Trailing her tongue over the mound of each breast, Alex gently pressed her lips to the soft skin, moving through to Olivia's cleavage before she paused, letting Olivia catch her breath.

"Oh…..Alex," Olivia sighed. "Christ. That…that's perfect — but this is your night."

Sitting up, Olivia took Alex's sweater in her hands, helping the blonde pull it over her head and toss it aside. Alex was beautiful, just as she remembered, with her breasts being held up by a blush pink bra with lace around the top of the cups. She was a vision, but Olivia's eyes couldn't help but dart towards her left collarbone — where all that remained of the bullet that had pierced a hole in her was a circular scar, faded and discolored as the burn had long since healed, about three and a half inches in diameter.

As if by instinct, Alex pulled her blonde hair from behind her neck and threw it over her left shoulder, covering her scar. She looked down to her left, away from Olivia's gaze.

"If you don't want to, I…I understand," Alex whispered. "It's…it's still a little weird for me, too."

Olivia took her left hand and cupped Alex's cheek, tilting her face back towards her and locking in her gaze.

"Alex, baby, look at me," Olivia said. "You're beautiful — you always have been, and you take my breath away just as much now as you did the day I met you. And your scar — well, your scar is a part of you. It doesn't make me want you any less. If anything, I want you more — because it kills me that I couldn't protect you that night, and to think about all the pain you've felt since then. Physically and emotionally. I want to do whatever I can, right now, to replace some of the pain you felt…if you want to."

Olivia blushed, but never let her eyes leave Alex. She took a moment to process what Olivia had said, only to smirk in short order as her eyes lit up.

"You _know_ that I'm going to want to fuck you no matter what you say, right?" Alex said. "But that — damn, that was particularly impressive."

Olivia smiled. "Come here."

This time, it was Olivia who initiated the kiss on Alex's lips, but she quickly pulled the blonde towards her, and Alex leaned back in her arms. Olivia navigated towards Alex's earlobe, gently nipping it with her teeth, and moved towards kissing the back and side of her neck.

Alex gasped at the love bite, arching her back into Olivia as she kissed her neck. The brunette moved towards the front of Alex's body, marking her kisses along her bra strap until she arrived at the spot of the scar.

Olivia paused briefly, her eyes darting towards Alex, who nodded for her to continue.

The brunette leaned forward, gently pressing her lips to Alex's scar. She trailed up her neck towards her lips, and the two kissed fervently once more.

"Take me," Alex whispered, breathless as they parted for the last time. "Please. I need you. I love you."

"Here?"

"The bedroom."

The two rose from the couch, walking towards the bedroom hand-in-hand. Olivia trailed just a step behind Alex, half-closing the bedroom door with her foot as they crossed the threshold.

They didn't have a long time, but they knew they had tonight.

And for now, that was enough.


End file.
